The Winds of Khalakovo: The First Volume of The Lays of Anuskaya Paperback – April 1, 2011

I discovered Bradley Beaulieu through the Twelve Kings of Sharakhai, which was one of my favorite books in a long time. Since the 2nd book in the series wasn't out when I finished it, I went looking for other books by him and found this one! I loved the Russian setting and thought the magic systems were interesting, but having 2 different magic systems was really confusing, and so was the profusion of Russian-ish terms that all seemed too similar to an English-speaker! I think having the glossary at the beginning of the book might have helped-- as it was, it took me a really long time to piece things together. But in the end I enjoyed the story and the characters, and I do think it all came together. It just could have been simplified, I think, while still being enjoyable.

If you’ve read ‘Twelve Kings in Sharakhai’, you know that the story is compelling, the characters captivating, and the writing sublime. In this book and its sequels, the story is compelling and the characters are captivating. The writing is not, however, sublime.
I can see why Night Shade Books went under. Good editing makes a world of difference, and theirs obviously wasn’t up to par. It’s not awful - the grammar and syntax errors are somewhere between what I expect from self-published books and Big Five mass market stuff. A good editor, though, would probably have cut out perhaps a fifth of the total word count, without sacrificing any noticeable details, and this book is the most polished of the trilogy.

I read constantly, and I adore long books, because I don’t have to go hunting for new reading material so often, but all three books in this trilogy are overly endowed with superfluous words. If you get impatient with that sort of thing, skip this book. If you aren’t bothered by it, or you can grit your teeth and ignore it - as I did - the story is definitely worth reading. I am not sorry to have bought the books. I’m a little sad, though, because I re-read most of my books once a year or so (I really do read constantly) and I know I’ll want to revisit this story, but I’m not sure I could slog through all the filler again.

I was looking for something other than the wonder wizard coming-of-age story. Looking for something other than might and magic. I found it in this series.

Beaulieu has created a unique world, but has borrowed pieces of earth's historical culture that works far better than one might imagine. There are several diverse cultures represented:one reminiscent of late 18th century Russia, one with elements of the Ottoman Empire and another that seems an amalgam of several societies of Earth's past with Middle Eastern and Native American elements included. .

While their is one central character, the story follows several. Their relationships weave a complex tapestry with the cultures lending credence to their motivations. The story progresses with changing alliances and shifting allegiances. As I read this series I often felt as if I was next to the characters. I was a windsman on a ship following the ley lines. I felt the cold of the drowning basin, comparing it to diving in Monterey Bay in February. I felt the passion of Nikandr for his country, his deep sense of duty. I understand the Maharrat's outrage at the theft of their lands, similar to that of the Native Americans at the mercy of the Europeans.

The Lays of Anuskaya is a voyage I will gladly take again in the future, reliving the steps that lead to the very satisfying outcome. I do wonder, however, if the spelling "lays" of the title is a misspelling of "leys" or whether it is a very subtle pun. In the end, it matters not. If you seek a true change of pace, Beaulieu delivers. I hope he is writing his next journey into this or another world.

I really enjoyed reading this book for the most part, but there were some completely frustrating parts of it that almost made me stop reading the book. The world building in this book is great, and the style of its delivery is interesting as it's definitely a slow burn, where you only learn about everything through the eyes of the characters, there's never any kind of info-dump. This makes for a great read, but at the same time some of the things could be a little confusing and hard to visualize, especially at first. Still, the world is very interesting here, where the culture is definitely Russian inspired, but their country is a series of islands and the main mode of transport are airships. There are two different magical powers in the book, with the ruling Russian-like class having wise-women that go into a deep meditative state and influence the ley lines of the country which power the air ships and generally keep the world running. The other power is much more devastating, and is only used by a different race of people that resemble Muslims, and they can bond with powerful elemental spirits and control the elements like the wind (supplying control and accelerated movement for the airships) earth, and fire. The interesting thing here, is that as part of their religion, they are not permitted to hurt anyone with their powers, but there's a group of terrorists that disagree with this belief and use their elemental powers and more traditional explosives to wreck devastation on any target they can. This provides the main conflict of the story, where a powerful terrorist cell is summoning large dangerous elementals with the eventual goal to destroy the world. The other main conflict is the plague that the country is suffering from (including the main character) which is linked to the world ending threat.

The main character in The Winds of Khalakovo is the heir to one of the most powerful royal families that controls the construction of the large air ships that fuels the nation's economy. I really enjoyed this character, especially with him having to deal with debilitating illness and everything it entails. At the beginning of the novel, he's about to have an arranged marriage with the sister of his best friend to link two of the powerful royal families. Things become a little complicated as he has a true love with someone else (even though she's apparently a courtesan, and an undercover terrorist), along with multiple terrorist attacks on air ships leading up to the marriage ceremonies, and the revelation of Nikandr's illness. Here, is where things started to get really weird. Each point of the love triangle is a viewpoint character, and while I at first enjoyed each of them, the terrorist/courtesan does something completely unforgivable yet the author seems to think that the reader will still feel for her afterwards. To expand on this, I'm going to have to go into spoiler territory, so if you haven't read the book yet you should skip to the next paragraph. SPOILER: She is told by her former lover and current terrorist leader sacrifice one of her only friend's newborn baby to summon a powerful spirit, and she does, murdering a total innocent in cold blood. The author tries to redeem her by having her go back to the friends house to try to remove the poisonous talisman, but it's too late as the baby is already dead, and when the family rightfully blames her and attempts to get justice, her terrorist friends murder the entire family (Mom, Father, and Grandfather of the slaughtered baby). The reason the author gives for the character's motivation is that her own child was killed after a terrorist hid in the house of the family babysitting for her, and overeager police burned the building down after they wouldn't turn him over. However, to me this should make her less likely to murder a completely innocent baby and then his entire family (although that wasn't directly), not give her motivation. The character does go through a change of heart later in the story, but I just didn't care, I wanted her to suffer and die for her horrible actions, and I didn't care if she had any redemption. There's another big problem I had with the book that completely frustrated and confused me and is a spoiler to talk about, and that's the actions of Nikandr's supposed best friend. During a hunt, he purposefully shoots and kills his dog for no reason, other than to be spiteful. In fact all of his best friend's horrible actions didn't make any sense, as really the only reason given for them is that they grew apart as friends, with him becoming more like his father along with having a resentment of the power Nikandr's family holds. What made it even worse was the fact that he never has to pay for his actions (at least in this book). /end spoilers

The writing here is very good, but at the same time the very unique Russian setting limited the flow of my reading as a lot of different Russian terms were included. The mix of Russian and normal English worked, but at the same time it could feel a little forced. Overall, while I had problems with the book, I still enjoyed reading it, and I definitely plan to continue the series eventually. I would recommend this book, but with the caveat that not everyone is going to enjoy it. Still, this is a great book that has a lot of redeeming features.